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World energy consumption by fuel source (in millions of tons of coal equivalent), to Source: Darmstadter et al. (:). Note: "Solid fuels" refers to coal, and "liquid fuels" to petroleum.
Source publication
Predominant analyses of energy offer insufficient theoretical and political-economic insight into the persistence of coal and other fossil fuels. The dominant narrative of coal powering the Industrial Revolution, and Great Britain's world dominance in the nineteenth century giving way to a U.S.- and oil-dominated twentieth century, is marred by tel...
Citations
... Previous research has examined socioeconomic dynamics in the implementation of new energies. National energy history, including the level of historical reliance on fossil fuels, influences a nation's ability to grow renewable energies (Gellert and Ciccantell 2020;Hao and Shao 2021). For example, nations which have heavily invested in fossil fuel infrastructure like pipelines or extraction are less likely to move away from fossil fuels due to sunk costs of their investment; this concept is often termed path dependency. ...
... However, this has not necessarily been the case at an aggregate level. Previous research shows that when one looks at the absolute use of all fuels rather than percentages of total use, no fuel but nuclear has experienced any significant decline in absolute use, but rather incumbent fuels persist alongside them (York 2012;Gellert and Ciccantell 2020). For example, the use of coal globally jwsr.pitt.edu ...
In light of ongoing and accelerating climate change driven by human combustion of fossil fuels, researchers have found evidence that national-level inequality influences whether nations are able to replace fossil fuels with alternative energies. This paper asks whether the inequality between nations also influences the rate at which nations replace fossil fuels. I use multilevel modeling techniques, World Bank data and data aggregated by Our World in Data for 146 nations from 1960–2021 to better understand the variation in national-level displacement of fossil fuels. Findings suggest there has been only partial displacement of fossil fuels at the global level during this period. In examining whether the variation in displacement of fossil fuels with alternative fuels at the national level can be described by lasting global inequality among nations, here measured by world-systems position, I find that semiperiphery nations displace fossil fuels at a higher rate on average as compared with core nations. This is further evidence for the importance of fossil fuel infrastructure and global inequality for implementing energy transitions to address climate change.
... Disagreements on green technology are particularly salient in questions concerning the transition away from fossil fuels toward advanced renewable energy technologies with the intention to sustain industrial levels of production (Capellán-Pérez, de Castro, and González 2019;Jacobson et al. 2017). 1 Recent critical scholarship on a transition to renewable energy sources has revealed unsustainable and unjust practices pertaining to mineral requirements and extraction (Mejia-Muñoz and Babidge 2023), land requirements (Capellán-Pérez, de Castro, and Arto 2017), net energy returns (King and van den Bergh 2018), carbon emissions (Wagner et al. 2022), biodiversity (Sonter et al. 2020), and labor conditions (Davidson 2023). An interdisciplinary body of literature focuses on understanding how the industrial development of advanced renewables is constituted by and constitutive of social relations of production (Huber and McCarthy 2017) with often problematic implications for social emancipation (Stock 2021), environmental justice (Avila 2018), ecological sustainability (Gellert and Ciccantell 2020), gender equality (Stock et al. 2023), as well as efforts to resist corporate power (Franquesa 2022) and decolonize the harnessing of energy (Zografos 2022). Other scholars are attempting to mitigate the consequences of this reality by appealing to technological progress or commodity chain reform as a means of solving the globally unsustainable and environmentally unjust relations implicated in renewable energy development (Riofrancos 2022). ...
Debates on technologies for harnessing renewable energies tend to generate a polarized arena in which critical voices are automatically denounced as defenders of fossil energy. This has created a difficult situation for activists and scholars voicing concerns about the comparatively low power density, low net energy, and environmental justice concerns of such technologies. In this paper, we highlight the contradictions and ambivalences underlying Promethean arguments for solar power, which are currently dividing the political left. Through a critical reading of three proponents of classical Marxism, we address the structural coherence and paradoxes of the discourses within which the faith in such "green" technology is mobilized. We illustrate how Promethean visions of solar power tend to suffer from a pervasive ontological separation of human ingenuity and global social metabolism. This raises important questions about the ambiguous and theoretically underdeveloped role of technology in historical materialism, and about how capital, once converted into the material form of technology, becomes exempt from political critique. Rather than accepting such an immaterial and ultimately depoliticized position on technology, we argue that Marxist scholarship should concede that Promethean approaches must be abandoned if we are to effectively address climate change and other challenges of the Anthropocene.
... the effectiveness of various drivers in reducing carbon emissions and achieving deep decarbonization. For instance, Great Britain's transition to renewable energy sources, the closure of coal power stations, increasing carbon prices, and the implementation of energy efficiency measures were identified as key drivers responsible for a remarkable two-thirds reduction in carbon emissions from electricity generation (Gellert, Ciccantell, 2020;Green, Staffell, 2021;Price et al., 2018). Additionally, scholarly exploration has delved into the interplay between technology adoption and enforcement strategies. ...
The study aims to assess the decarbonization efforts of corporations in Malaysia in relation to the country’s national net-zero emission targets. A qualitative approach was adopted, employing two focus group discussions (FGDs) with a total of 18 participants. The FGD questions were developed based on the participants’ expertise and experiences. Thematic analysis was utilized to analyze the collected data. This study sheds light on key decarbonization practices in Malaysian companies, which place greater emphasis on environmental regulatory compliance and cost-saving measures. However, investment in decarbonization remains a small part of overall capital investment and receives little attention from corporate leadership. The importance of addressing the concerns raised by this study is key to realizing Malaysia’s Determined National Commitment (NDC) to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. This study contributes to the existing literature by providing insights into the decarbonization efforts of corporations in Malaysia, specifically in the context of the country’s national net-zero emission targets. The research utilizes a qualitative approach and applies thematic analysis to explore the perceptions and motivations driving decarbonization initiatives. The study also highlights the role of government pressures and the need to address critical business concerns for successful decarbonization.
... Scholars have extensively investigated the effectiveness of various drivers in reducing carbon emissions and achieving deep decarbonization. For instance, Great Britain's transition to renewable energy sources, the closure of coal power stations, increasing carbon prices, and the implementation of energy efficiency measures were identified as key drivers responsible for a remarkable two-thirds reduction in carbon emissions from electricity generation (Gellert, Ciccantell, 2020;Green, Staffell, 2021;Price et al., 2018). Additionally, scholarly exploration has delved into the interplay between technology adoption and enforcement strategies. ...
Digital technologies and innovative solutions play a crucial role in promoting sustainable development. However, it is important to acknowledge that these technological advancements may positively and negatively impact sustainability (Gray, 1994; Al-Emran, Griffy-Brown, 2023). In 2015, the United Nations (UN) adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as a plan of action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all people worldwide (UN, 2015). The Agenda contains 17 integrated sustainable development goals (SDGs) and 169 specific measurable targets. It emphasizes the private sector’s role in facilitating the advancement and achievement of the UN’s sustainable development initiatives, working in partnership with governments, civil society, and other stakeholders (UN, 2015). Even before adoption of this agenda, several social, environmental, and technological developments have impacted the operations and functions of companies. One of these developments is the emergence of green sustainability (Gray, 1994; Abbas, 2019), which helped evaluate companies’ overall performance and shaped the creation of customer value. The corporate (as well as institutional) responses to the emergence of green sustainability have provided an impetus for companies to develop relevant business models compatible with these developments and to share these models with shareholders and society at large. This impetus, in turn, has made it possible to implement sustainable development practices coherently and nurtures a new culture consistent with a large-scale transition to a green, sustainable future. Digital communications effectively eliminate the geographical boundaries for businesses and their customers, so the latter can quickly contact different suppliers worldwide, and locate substitute goods that fulfil their needs (Singh, 2020; Mather, 2020). This trend has thus made acquiring and maintaining competitive advantage a real challenge for companies. This challenge involves the task of achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and aligning business strategies with these SDGs. Hence, companies successfully adopt multiple strategies and generate knowledge to satisfy the needs of their customers and achieve their SDGs. The private sector’s contribution to the achievement of the SDGs can be realized through the integration of principles into corporate strategies and operations. In this context, given that the development and implementation of corporate strategy is the responsibility of the firm-level green sustainability model (including environmental, social, and governance aspects), it is essential to provide an understanding of whether and how, green sustainability models affect or influence the corporate sector’s engagement with SDGs (Mangena, 2012; Pirzada et al., 2017).
... Various dilemmas present themselves. Some countries see a path to development through the use of abundant fossil fuel resources despite global pressure to mitigate climate change by abandoning fossil fuels (Gellert and Ciccantell, 2020;Ciccantell, 2021). Armstrong (2020) argues that less wealthy countries have a right to develop (as a form of global justice), making it necessary to support and compensate them as fossil fuel extraction is brought into line with decarbonization targets. ...
Transition to a post-carbon economy implies changes that are both far-reaching and unprecedented. The notion that a decarbonization transition must encompass multiple forms of justice is gaining ground. In response, the concept of Just Transition has become ever more popular – and confusion about its meaning ever greater. We argue in this paper that the term Just Transition needs a rigorous updating to develop its full conceptual power for the analysis and evaluation of the rapid and extensive energy transitions already underway. After reviewing the different uses of Just Transition in practice and scholarship, we propose that the term be used as an analytical concept for an ongoing process of transition. The Just Transition concept can provide an integrated, whole-system perspective on justice (procedural, distributive, recognition, and restorative) that can help in identifying systemic solutions to address environmental and socio-economic concerns. This would differ from reductionist approaches that derive from legacy silo-sectoral or technologically driven approaches; these too often overlook negative side-effects and wider justice implications of reorganizing economic practice. An examination of COVID-19 pandemic responses illustrates our operationalization of the Just Transition concept, highlighting the importance of designing whole-system policies that are equitable, as well as the pitfalls of pursuing a narrow sectoral approach. Taking seriously the implications of complex systems with hard-to-predict effects also has concrete implications for policy interventions at all levels of governance. In particular, we highlight the importance of attending to multiple social inequalities for ensuring the resilience of whole-system decarbonization in the face of instability, unpredictability, and unprecedented change.
Key policy insights
• The transition to net-zero will be neither sustainable nor credible if it creates or worsens social inequalities; a backlash is likely if the transition is not perceived to be just.
• Pathways forward may only emerge through observation, experimentation, and experience.
• A range of policy tools exist to address Just Transition concerns. These include addressing social and environmental aspects of economic policy; making sure that interventions are adapted to local contexts; building democratic engagement platforms; and open and transparent communication.
• Job creation does not guarantee just outcomes, as justice goes beyond employment conditions.
... As evidence presented in this article suggests, LSCE was far for being an outright profitable business for Colombia. Yet, despite the and combustion has continuously grown and further entrenched itself in economies and societies alike, not only in Colombia, but on a global scale [28]. ...
... As a result, pro-coal policies continue to be pushed without much effective resistance. 28 This leads perhaps to this paper's main contribution: providing an understanding of coal sector entrenchment as a system. While the paper's critical stance may steer the argumentation towards the negative impacts of coal extraction, one insight is crucial. ...
To increase the ambition and effectiveness of a global coal phase-out, it is central to understand how one extraction regime – fossil fuel extractivism (FE) — was phased in. Doing so may make it possible to confront the actors dependent on and strengthened by the associated natural resource rents. Characterized by the large-scale, high-impact, export-oriented extraction of fossil fuels such as steam coal, the present paper traces the processes that led first to the phase-in and then to the entrenchment of FE in Colombia. Taking the case of large-scale coal extraction (LSCE) as an example, the paper analyzes the causal mechanisms allowing this activity to take deep roots in politics, society and the economy, with grave implications for the environment and culture of affected communities and the country as a whole. Drawing on different data sources (20 stakeholder interviews, policy and press documents, scholarly research, etc.), the paper adapted Palley’s (2017) notion of policy lock-in and lock-out via hysteresis to propose an entrenchment spiral as a potential mechanism leading to the current degree of coal and fossil fuel extraction entrenchment in Colombia. The paper concludes that the phase-in of LSCE and FE was facilitated by the combination of masking and securitization strategies used by an incumbency regime closely associated with state capture. As power dynamics shifted, asymmetric dependency relationships between mining companies and affected individuals, communities and governments at local, regional and national levels were gradually generated, leading to this sector’s seemingly inexpugnable position. That said, knowledge is power. Knowing how phase-in and entrenchment occurred and still happens can be an initial step towards confronting and even reversing it.
... The mineral has reached peaking price levels at the turn of the 2010s owing to increasing demand and industrialization needs by countries such as China and India. For a recent analysis, see Gellert and Ciccantell (2020). We thank one of our reviewers for calling attention to this point. ...
South-South relations have raised hopes of a new development geography – one based on solidarity and more horizontal partnerships among countries in the Global South. In recent years, however, many of these aspirations have proven far-fetched. In the case of Brazil, the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro may even suggest that the South–South hype is now over and done. However, empirical accounts of the engagement of Southern, emerging market-based multinationals across the Global South, such as that of Brazil’s mining corporation Vale in Mozambique, remain scarce. One missing perspective in defining South-South relations is the agency of other actors beyond emerging powers’ governments. This article therefore goes beyond the pre-eminence of the Brazilian state. Instead, it analyses how South–South relations have been signified and used by two critical actors in the context of Vale’s extractive operations in Mozambique: first, the professionals involved in corporate responsibility projects and second, the Mozambican power elites. There is a range of analyses of South–South ties, the imaginaries and hopes associated with them, and their practical possibilities which change according to the expectations, demands, and interests of different actors. We observe that Brazilian professionals in particular have built on specific cultural framings and imaginaries associated with South–South relations to claim a distinct vision and practice of corporate responsibility. Taking note of the prominent role played by Mozambique’s ruling party Frelimo, we further demonstrate how Mozambican power elites have harnessed, through gatekeeping practices, the country’s commodity-spurred architecture of South–South relations to reaffirm political power and amplify individual economic interests. In light of Vale’s current withdrawal from Mozambique, we posit that our analysis provides a timely opportunity to reflect on the multiple makings, and implications of South-South engagement, the controversies linked to the role of Brazilian capital in Africa, and Mozambique’s development through extraction.
... The mineral has reached peaking price levels at the turn of the 2010s owing to increasing demand and industrialization needs by countries such as China and India. For a recent analysis, see Gellert and Ciccantell (2020). We thank one of our reviewers for calling attention to this point. ...
South-South relations have raised hopes of a new development geography – one based on solidarity andmore horizontal partnerships among countries in the Global South. In recent years, however, many ofthese aspirations have proven far-fetched. In the case of Brazil, the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro may evensuggest that the South–South hype is now over and done. However, empirical accounts of the engage-ment of Southern, emerging market-based multinationals across the Global South, such as that ofBrazil’s mining corporation Vale in Mozambique, remain scarce. One missing perspective in definingSouth-South relations is the agency of other actors beyond emerging powers’ governments. This articletherefore goes beyond the pre-eminence of the Brazilian state. Instead, it analyses how South–South rela-tions have been signified and used by two critical actors in the context of Vale’s extractive operations inMozambique: first, the professionals involved in corporate responsibility projects and second, theMozambican power elites. There is a range of analyses of South–South ties, the imaginaries and hopesassociated with them, and their practical possibilities which change according to the expectations,demands, and interests of different actors. We observe that Brazilian professionals in particular have builton specific cultural framings and imaginaries associated with South–South relations to claim a distinctvision and practice of corporate responsibility. Taking note of the prominent role played byMozambique’s ruling party Frelimo, we further demonstrate how Mozambican power elites have har-nessed, through gatekeeping practices, the country’s commodity-spurred architecture of South–Southrelations to reaffirm political power and amplify individual economic interests. In light of Vale’s currentwithdrawal from Mozambique, we posit that our analysis provides a timely opportunity to reflect on themultiple makings, and implications of South-South engagement, the controversies linked to the role ofBrazilian capital in Africa, and Mozambique’s development through extraction.
... Picking up on their work, a long tradition of historical analyses, mostly linear models of change from one energy system to another, presents energy as a critical factor in social change, [1-18-26-32], sometimes even "the critical factor" [19]. Without necessarily sticking to the idea of linear synchronous transitions of energy and social systems, as the 20th and 21st century's evolutions in energy sources have been rather incremental [33], this line of historic work raises a set of research questions that could be asked about the ongoing sustainability transitions. ...
This perspective aims at a geopolitical conceptual and empirical contribution to research questions on power in energy transition research, coming from the history of energy and Sustainability Transitions Studies. It aims at answering the call that has been made for the development of approaches that take power dynamics between actors into account, by authors coming from Sustainability Transitions Studies.
This article suggests a geopolitical approach of power relations, at and of the different scales of energy transitions – understood as a change of energy resource could open a complementary and more spatial vision on this issue based on the main concepts of representations, territoriality, and resource development.
This conceptual proposition is then developed over two empirical examples. The first one is France’s energy governance system, which is just stepping out of its precedent energy transition towards nuclear energy. It explores the effects of the ongoing sustainable transition on the structure of the political landscape and of the energy sector using the concepts of resource development control and appropriation. The second one on EU energy transition policy highlights the importance of representations, a key concept in geopolitics, whose analysis facilitates the understanding of actors’ strategies.
... This energy transition will add to India's already substantial reliance on coal energy for years to come, with significant negative consequences for global climate change. This finding is in line with recent research on energy transitions that show the remarkable endurance of fossil fuels like coal, in spite of available, lower cost renewable options both globally [10][11][12] and in India [13,14]. ...
... The sizeable literature on energy transitions has, to date, mainly focused on how to design, implement, govern and operate new lowcarbon power production facilities, based on the assumption that older forms of energy will disappear once renewable options become available [10,15]. One cause for great optimism has been the increasing availability of cost-competitive forms of renewable energy around the world giving impetus to the massive decarbonisation efforts that are urgently needed. ...
... Following this definition, historical examples of energy transitions include transitions from wood to coal and from coal to oil. However, if we focus not on the share, but rather on the total amount of energy used, a quite different picture emerges wherein no actual energy transition has ever taken place in modern times [10] as the amount of coal, wood and oil that are currently used globally are all at historic highs. New energy forms, including more recent renewable ones, are, from this perspective, what Bell and York [11] term additions rather than transitions. ...
The advance of renewable energy around the world has kindled hopes that coal-based energy is on the way out. Recent data, however, make it clear that growing coal consumption in India coupled with its continued use in China keeps coal-based energy at 40 percent of the world’s heat and power generation. To address the consolidation of coal-based power in India, this article analyses an energy transition to, rather than away from, carbon-intensive energy over the past two decades. We term this transition India’s new coal geography; the new coal geography comprises new ports and thermal power plants run by private-sector actors along the coastline and fuelled by imported coal. This geography runs parallel to, yet is distinct from, India’s ‘old’ coal geography, which was based on domestic public-sector coal mining and thermal power generation. We understand the development of coastal thermal power as an outcome of long-term electrical energy shortages and significant public controversy within the old coal geography. By analysing the making of the new coal geography at a national level, and scrutinizing its localised manifestation and impact through a case study of Goa state, we outline the significant infrastructural investment and policy work of a dispersed network of public- and private-sector actors that slowly enabled this new coal energy avatar. We argue that the enormous effort to establish India’s new coal geography further entrenches the country’s reliance on coal. The result is that for India, energy security is a choice between domestic and imported coal.
